Boroughmuir High School is a local authority non-denominational secondary school located at 111 Viewforth in the Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh, a mile (1.5 km) southwest of the city centre. A popular school, which was named Sunday Times State School of the Year in 2012 and 2018, the roll has risen from 1159 pupils in 2015 to 1530 in 2023. Educating boys and girls from the age of 11 to 18, drawn from Bruntsfield, Buckstone and South Morningside primary schools, pupils are divided between six houses; namely Bruntsfield, Hartington, Leamington, Montpelier, Viewforth and Westhall. These are all named after streets close to the school's former location, a quarter-mile (0.4 km) to the southeast. There are 95 staff (2023).
This much-delayed building was opened in 2018 by Shirley-Anne Somerville, Minister for Higher Education, Further Education and Science. It cost £35 million and a twelve-classroom extension was completed in 2022 budgeted at a further £4 million. Constructed on part of the site of the former Scottish & Newcastle Brewery, the building was designed by Allan Murray Architects, while the contractor was Northern Ireland-based O'Hare and McGovern. With a landscaped piazza leading to the edge of the Union Canal, the resulting building is a four-storey cuboid surrounding a central atrium, with external glass curtain walls divided by precast glass-reinforced concrete-clad columns and beams. The use of green reveals reflects the school livery. Inside are forty classrooms grouped into five learning zones, together with flexible collaborative and break-out spaces. There is a 300-seat assembly hall, gym hall and drama studios at basement level; a sports hall, music studios and adminstrative offices at ground level; catering and social space on the first floor; and an open-topped multi-use games area entered at second-floor level. This was the first rooftop games area in a school in Scotland, making up for the lack of adjacent sports pitches.
This is the third building occupied by the school. It began as Boroughmuir Senior Secondary School in 1904, on Warrender Park Crescent, in a building which became part of James Gillespie's High School after Boroughmuir had moved to John Alexander Carfrae's building at 26 Viewforth in 1913. The original building returned to become Boroughmuir's Annexe for the Junior School for many years. The Junior and Senior schools merged to form Boroughmuir High School with the introduction of comprehensive education in the 1970s. The Annexe was redeveloped as student accommodation for the University of Edinburgh in the 1990s, while the old Viewforth building is now Boroughmuir Apartments.
Notable former pupils include golfer Tommy Armour (1895 - 1968), plant hunter Sir George Taylor (1904 - 1993), physical chemist Prof. Robin Hochstrasser (1931 - 2013), Sir Alex Trotman (1933 - 2005), who rose to become Chairman and CEO of the Ford Motor Company, actress Annette Crosbie (b. 1934), politician Christine Grahame (b. 1944), biophysicist Richard Henderson (b. 1945), diplomat Dame Barbara Hay (b. 1953), political reporter Sarah Smith (b. 1968), unrelated actresses Neve McIntosh (b. 1972) and Pollyanna McIntosh (b. 1979), Ally Massaquoi (b. 1987) and Kayus Bankole (b. 1987), both members of the band Young Fathers, and actor Ncuti Gatwa (b. 1992). Politician Robin Harper (b. 1940) taught here between 1972 and 1999.
